Monthly Archives: August 2008

I usually have a problem giving breaks. My body stopped sending signals to my brain long time ago, due to not getting back any. However I realized that I have limits too.

I was at the riatalks, a two day event at two separate conference halls. I worked out a plan and was going to be able to attend all talks that interested me. However, I forgot one small thing, timing is not an additive function around here. At the first day, even though some presenters couldn’t make it, talks was not over when I had to leave.

At that time, my body had a few reservations already. Some of you might know, snooker is a demanding game, physically and mentally. So I had to shutdown the message queue completely. In contrast, I had my personal best after 5 hours and just before my last sip at 2 A.M. Snooker is sometimes called chess with balls, however chess is a rather simple game. Snooker is pretty much Go with sticks to me.

Second day things got worse, time wise. I kept running between the halls, to see if any starts on time. Still I had the chance to chat with yesterdays last presenter, Daron Yondem. Daron and Ferruh Mavituna (in Turkish) had the best presentation skills at the talks. I am certainly not an authority but I can at least suggest everyone to read scott’s tips. Needless to say, I had to leave early for another round of snooker.

I closed the weekend with another physical challenge. We went to “The Dark Knight” at an IMAX theater, together with my snooker body. I heard the most stupid excuse to not giving a break, “… since this is an IMAX …”. Rest should be ” and as technology advance, we go backwards …”. I know intermissions are not common in most of the countries, but this movie’s length is not common either. I was cool with it but I saw people suffer.

Everyone suggests watching the movie in an IMAX theater however even 4K resolution is not enough at a big enough screen. Simple division that is, however if you had seen the movie, you might wanna check out how other math guys watched it, beware of the spoilers.

Today, I can tell by the mirror that breaks are necessary, so here is one.